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Wednesday, January 25, 2017

As promised, here is an update to my long-neglected French Indochina project.

From
1945 to 1954 the French fought a long, bitter campaign to regain control of
their colonial possessions in Indochina. During the struggle, the French and their allies lost over 134,000 in dead or missing in battles across Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This sacrifice was all for nought as the Vietnamese people had tasted independence and would not be assuaged from it.

The
climatic battle of the war was fought in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, a
small mountain valley hamlet. Here, a large, well-equipped French force
was encircled and destroyed by the Viet Mihn over a two-month siege. The Vietnamese victory
shocked the world and allowed Ho Chi Mihn to negotiate from a position
of strength at the Geneva Conference later that year.

Unfortunately, even though the French were compelled to withdraw from the region, their ally, the
United States, refused to allow the Vietnamese their
self-determination. American interference escalated to police action and
then to undeclared war, plunging Vietnam into another 10 years of
conflict which cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of
lives. In the end, America withdrew, Vietnam was united and the Vietnamese achieved what they had set out to do: gain their independence from foreign control.

These 28mm figures were sculpted by Paul Hicks and are excellent
models. They are armed in a variety of weapons, reflecting the ad hoc
supply structure of the Viet Mihn at that time. Some are armed with
Mosin Nagant rifles while others have variants of PPSh and PPS
submachine guns

The different shaped bases denote, officers/NCOs, infantrymen and specialists. I do this to help spot them on the tabletop.

This range is available from FNG Miniatures and Empress Miniatures.

Flag from Empress.

Thanks for dropping by folks! To shake things up a bit, next week will be something from 'Star Wars.'